Bright Lights of Seeing, of Listening

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If there is one thing I want you know, to embody, to remind yourself every moment of the day:

There is nothing wrong with you.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with you.

You are perfect the way you are.

Contact Lenses

Audre Lorde

Lacking what they want to see

makes my eyes hungry

and eyes can feel

only pain.

Once I lived behind thick walls

of glass

and my eyes belonged

to a different ethic

timidly rubbing the edges

of whatever turned them on.

Seeing usually

was a matter of what was

behind my brain.

Now my eyes have become

a part of me exposed

quick risky and open

to all the same dangers.

I see much

better now

and my eyes hurt.

The last three lines hit me powerfully.

I see much

better now

and my eyes hurt.

I got glasses in fifth grade (though I can’t ever remember being able to see the chalkboard.) I didn’t know that I couldn’t see.

When I put my glasses on for the first time, I was amazed at the clarity. And at the same time, overwhelmed with how bright and clear everything seemed. There is a reason they had me on a schedule of wearing them just a little bit more each day.

After years of having glasses, my mother let me get contacts when I started high school. I could see WITHOUT squishing my glasses when lying down on my side to read (that was my sport in school - lying down sideways while reading.)

I could see when I swam and in the shower. If I thought seeing through glasses were amazing, my contacts created a new person who could do and see things she never could before.

Every night though I would take out my contacts and return to glasses for the evening (because I had books to read of course!)

One evening during the Christmas season, I looked up from my book and over my glasses to look at the tree we had in our living room. I saw the blurry colors of light, everything shimmery. It looked ethereal. Dreamy.

How many years had it been since I’d seen the tree like this (remembering that prior to fifth grade, that was how I saw and thought everyone saw)? How had I let this go? I was so used to crisp lines and bright lights.

I thought about the 10 year old me and her first hour with her first pair of glasses. Sitting quietly in the back seat of the car, the highway took us past farm lands, mountains and trees. Trees, upon trees, upon trees. I imagined I was in awe of the details I could have never imagined. I probably saw the cows and farmhouses for the first time.

But as a teenager in front of that Christmas tree, I realized what I had missed. I had actually sacrificed something to see clearly and now was wondering if it was worth the cost. I forfeited a dream world, a world where things were softer and rounded. I could live in a bubble - “what you can’t see won’t hurt you.”

I still wear both contacts and glasses. Despite being a candidate for Lasik, I have no desire to lose the softness and ease that going without vision correction gives me. I can be reminded that there is a cost to seeing clearly.

As a middle aged adult who now has to add the reading part to her glasses, I’ve come to understand that there are times that ignorance really can be bliss. Once you truly “see” something, there is no going back to before “seeing.” And there can be all sorts of work (and possibly pain) to deal with and process.

We strive for and say we want the truth. Yet, I think we know deep down, that if we receive the truth, what our voice really wants to say to us…well, we might not like what we have to go through to get there. Maybe it’s not the right season or situation. So we might “take off our glasses” for a moment's reprieve, opting not to listen to The Still Small Voice for a little while…

One of my guides asked a relevant question a few years ago that still reverberates through me. The idea seems loving and cruel at the same time.

It is: “What would happen if we all really went around telling the truth? No matter the circumstances.”

As the words left his mouth, I started to laugh, cry, and snort in various combinations, my body vibrating and jerking in various ways. I could imagine the relief of being honest in one moment, oh sweet relief. But then I could feel the extreme pain, we could all cause and receive, and would that really help us create a more loving world?

He made a statement “It’s too bright. You can’t blind people all at once. Just a little light at a time.”

Maybe one day there will be a bright light for you - I wish you well when that happens.

But for now, Listening to The Still Small Voice…sometimes too bright. No need to blind yourself. No need to hurt.

Just a little light at a time.